During the past 20 years, the frozen food industry has grown swiftly supported by demographic trends: increasing numbers of single parent and two income families for whom convenience is a significant influence on purchasing behavior. Today, two thirds of all women are in the work force. The US frozen food industry posted revenues of $16.3 billion dollars in 1991.
The fastest growing component of the frozen food industry during the past 5 years has been products with some health appeal. The industry has responded to the increasing health concerns of consumers. Today's consumer is well versed on nutrition and is increasingly shifting towards products that offer greater nutritional value. In fact, surveys demonstrate that 96% of all consumers consider nutrition as being important.
The frozen pizza market enjoyed an annual growth rate of 27.3% from 1988 to 1991. Changing societal food preferences, from red meat towards foods with low fat and cholesterol have bolstered this growth. Frozen pizza has established itself as a health food that is easy to prepare and is popular with children. Ease of preparation is regarded as a determining purchase criteria by 73% of consumers.
In order to take advantage of this growing market, a number of companies have produced frozen pizzas for marketing to supermarkets and grocery stores. Some companies further market their frozen pizzas to fast food chains, as well as restaurants. These uncooked frozen pizza products, however, have not been found to be satisfactory. Upon cooking, such frozen pizzas have not displayed the spongy texture and freshness achieved with fresh cooked pizza. In addition, storage stability with many of these products is a problem and, therefore, such products can only be kept fresh by including large amounts of preservatives. However, as consumers become more health conscious, they become less accepting of products which employ such preservatives. Thus, the search for frozen products which display the taste and texture of fresh pizza, and can be stored without quantities of preservatives, has continued.